1/3 of tin

Half

the world’s supply of tantalum is
sold to make electronics, like televisions and tablets—some of
it funding civil wars in Africa.

Making our stuff requires an astounding amount of raw materials.

By weight, electronics require far more resources than
any other product.

An 8-ounce phone requires over
165 pounds of raw material. Fueled by the demand for cool gadgets,
iron ore production has increased by 180%, cobalt by 165%, and lithium
by 125% in the last 10 years.

But we’re running out of stuff to mine.

Every year, manufacturers have to go deeper into the earth,
producing more waste for less raw materials. Copper ore deposits are one-tenth
the purity of the ore mined 100 years ago. Gold yields have declined
23% in the last six years.

Manufacturing costs us resources and energy.

Electronics come with baggage we can’t see. To make a phone, manufacturers
need a lot more material than ends up in the finished
product—200 times more.
A desktop computer requires
500 pounds of fossil fuels to make.

Microchips are in everything—computers, cars, even refrigerators. But
making those tiny chips costs more than you’d think. It takes about
70 pounds of water and hundreds of chemicals—including arsenic—to make
a single microchip; your cell phone contains dozens of them.

Fabricating microchips has made Silicon Valley—the heart of the high
tech industry—one of the most polluted areas in the United States.

Repair makes your products last longer.

Every cell phone repaired is one less that needs to be manufactured.
Every laptop used for just one year longer lessens the strain on our finite
resources. Every computer upgraded can go on to a second, third, or even a
fourth user before it really needs to be replaced.

Buy repairable electronics whenever possible. Fix your phone and your
computer when they wear out. Then keep using them, or give them away.

You can do something real, something tangible to make electronics a more
sustainable part of our lives.

Mining and manufacturing is destruction.

Making products last longer just makes sense—repair
and reuse are our future.

fix it yourself

The world needs fixing. Some people don’t have clean water because they don’t know how to repair their water pumps. Many companies don’t make parts and manuals available to independent repair experts. We’re fixing that.